Man Gets Life In Prison In 3-Month-Old Son’s Death

FLINT (WWJ/AP) – A 24-year-old Flint-area man has been sentenced to life in prison in the 2012 death of his 3-month-old son.

Jeramy Wagner, of Genesee County’s Montrose Township, was sentenced on Wednesday after earlier pleading guilty to second-degree murder and first-degree child abuse, admitting that he punched his son Andrew in the head on Oct. 15, 2012.

Wagner offered an apology before the sentence was handed down, saying: “This is the single-most deviant act I’ve ever committed.”

Defense attorney Tricia Raymond said Wagner was watching his son alone when the incident occurred. The baby was crying and Wagner snapped, punching the infant once in the head with a closed fist, the Flint Journal reported. The baby’s mother later found her son, unresponsive in his crib.

The boy was rushed to Hurley Medical Center where he was pronounced dead on arrival. An autopsy determined he died of a blow to the head.

Wagner, who has been described by attorneys as having “significant psychiatric issues,” was jailed several days later after a three-hour standoff with police at Riverside Mobile Home Park where he lived with the infant’s mother. Under the sentence, he’ll be eligible for parole in 15 years.